The Longwood University Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders has been awarded a five-year U.S. Department of Education grant to focus on training speech-language pathology graduate students.

The grant, awarded in collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University’s departments of Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy, will fund work to prepare these graduate students for school-based practice through an interprofessional education model.

“We are very excited to receive funding for this program and the important work we will achieve in Central Virginia because of it,” said Dr. Lissa Power-deFur, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

“Over the next five years, we will focus on developing shared competencies in interprofessional practice and developing skills as change agents to build capacity of school personnel to improve outcomes for children with disabilities. We designed the program to to reduce personnel shortages and increase interprofessional practice competencies, and this project will provide financial support to students during their graduate program and mentorship through their first year of practice in school settings.”